(Filippo Valentini)
“You have to eat!” Renata exclaims again.
“I’m not hungry.” I repeat for the fifth time without looking her in the eye.
From the time we got home, the only thing I did was to take a shower and sit on the bed. I put my cell phone in the center of the mattress and didn’t take my eyes off it for a second. It has been about three and a half hours that I have been in the same position, I am agonizingly waiting for news.
“Filippo.” Renata calls me, sitting down next to me on the bed. “I know you are worried about your brother, I am too, but I need you to drink at least a glass of juice, I don’t want you to faint from faintness, you have been more than six hours without eating. Please, can you do this for me?” I can feel the concern in his voice.
I look away from the cell phone and look into her beautiful eyes, they are watery, you can see how much she is holding back from crying, I take a deep breath. I know that she is worried about me, and it is nice to feel that someone cares if I am hungry or not, but I am used to going long periods without ingesting any kind of food, my record time in training with my father is three weeks.
“Come here.” I pull her by the shoulders and make her lean her back against my chest. I gather her in my arms and lay my head on the curve of her neck, inhaling her lavender scent. “I won’t be able to eat anything until that phone rings, I should be there with them, I should be in that damn hospital waiting room along with everyone else, but… I’m being weak, like I’m still a scared little kid.”
I feel a cake forming in my throat again, I’m opening up to her again, I take a deep breath, I have a feeling that this will be our last hug; I’m in such a mood to break everything around me I’m just holding myself back so I don’t scare her even more, I hate feeling like she’s afraid of me.
Renata holds my hand and intertwines her fingers with mine, her hand is so tiny compared to mine, so soft in contrast to my calloused and scarred one. She raises our hands and kisses the back of mine.
“There is no shame in feeling afraid of losing someone important, it just shows how much you love that person and loving is the noblest feeling in the world.”
“In my world, loving means being weak and giving the enemy loopholes to get at you.” – I think, but remain silent.
Renata faces me and with her other hand caresses my face, I fix my eyes on hers, even in silence, I feel comforted, which is strange, but at that moment I thank God for being with her, I don’t know what I would have done in my moment of pure hatred, for sure I would have shot the security guards who didn’t protect my brother, I would have killed Marco and thus putting two mafias at war, I wouldn’t measure the consequences of my actions.
“You better try to sleep.” I say, pulling her into my arms again, turn off the lamp and we lie on the bed facing each other, while she caresses my face, I caress her back.
After a few minutes Renata’s hand stops moving and her breathing becomes deeper, showing that she has fallen asleep. I give her a long kiss and carefully take her out of my arms, cover her up, and give her another kiss, now on top of her head, not avoiding inhaling the smell of her hair.
As I close the bedroom door, my cell phone vibrates and I feel my heart race, my brother’s name flashes on the screen and in a rush I answer the call.
“We need to talk, I’m on my way to your place,” Vicenzo hangs up after saying this.
My heart squeezes, he didn’t let me ask about Matteo and quickly hung up, I don’t have a good feeling about this. As if guided by instinct, I enter the room again and watch Renata sleeping for a few more seconds, she must be so exhausted. I outline her face, recording every bit of it.
****
“What took you so long?” Vicenzo asks as I enter the room.
He is sitting on my couch with a bottle of whiskey in his hand, he drinks directly from the bottle.
“I rushed here, it took me six minutes on the way, which should have been thirty minutes,” I answered and sat down in the armchair, facing him.
I notice his downcast face, I try to prepare myself for the worst of all the news, but there is no way to prepare for it. I should be used to death. I was raised to kill or die, but I always saw my brothers as superheroes. I know I’m not a child anymore, but I can’t accept losing any of them, not like this, murdered.
“Matteo… he…” Shit, I can’t even ask if my brother died, that word just doesn’t want to come out.
“He is not dead yet.” Hearing this, I let out the breath I hadn’t even noticed I had been holding. I feel such a relief come over me. “But…” I hate it when in the middle of good news someone says “more”. “The bullets that hit him in the back were lodged in the muscles between his ribs, but one was lodged in the back of his head, causing head trauma.”
When he finishes speaking, he turns the bottle of whiskey around and takes a big gulp.
“Did they manage to remove the bullet?” I ask in distress.
“Yes, but the doctors can’t tell if he will survive, at this point he is in a coma.”
“How long before he wakes up?” I ask, clinging to a small hope that they have a date.
“No one knows if he will ever wake up… Maybe a week, a month, a year… or never again.”
“Matteo is strong, he will get up from that bed.” I speak, Matteo always endured the worst punishments from our father, sometimes he even endured the punishments that should be for Vincenzo and me, he was always there to save us from our father.
“Yes,” Vicenzo agrees with me, but I know that like me, he is afraid. “With Matteo in a coma, and without a son to take his place, I will have to take over for our brother.” He speaks, I just nod my head. “I can’t take on three jobs alone, I need you to go back to Italy.”
Sigh, deep down I already knew this would happen, even if Matteo wasn’t in a coma, since it was murder, he would remain hidden until we found the people who did it. In my mind, the image of Renata sleeping peacefully appears, I feel my heart racing, will I ever see her again? What will she think when she wakes up tomorrow and doesn’t see me beside her?
“Are you thinking of the Bella ballerina?”
“Don’t call her that.” I say jealousy. “Yes, I left her asleep, I left without even saying goodbye to her.”
“If you want, you can take it with you.”
“I would like to, but I don’t want to involve her even more in this dirty world, she doesn’t deserve it…”
“You are in love with her, aren’t you?” Vicenzo asks.
I can’t answer him, I can’t deny it, but I don’t know love, I’ve never been in love before, but I know that my heart belongs to her, it’s as if it beats only for her, my eyes see her as a goddess, and the other women are like mere mortals without value. I think I’m fucked, marrying a woman now for the benefit of the mob will be torturous, I’ll look at my wife and all I’ll be able to think about is Renata.
“Her silence only confirms me. We are going back to Italy in two hours, will you come back to say goodbye to her and pick up your things that are there?”
“There are only a few clothes there, my things are still in this house.” I was already prepared to leave her life, that’s why I took only clothes, I just didn’t expect that my departure from her life would be so soon. “I don’t want to say goodbye to her.”
“Okay, then go get ready.”
Vicenzo gets up and disappears down the hall. I feel my heart tighten, I pick up my cell phone and open the gallery. Before I came here, I took a picture of her sleeping, a tear ran down my eye, I didn’t imagine that one day I would cry for leaving someone behind.